A generous allocation of 4,128 MHz worth of spectrum running from 27.5GHz to 30GHz (albeit not contiguous) will give data speeds of 50Mbit/sec to a single plane or ship and an estimated 10Mbit/sec per user thanks to a new frequency allocation from Ofcom.
The ruling allows "Earth station antennas" on moving vehicles which will …

I wonder...

... if you could pay for one device and then share the connection with partner/friend/family on the flight using the built in phone/tablet functions, that would definitely make it cheaper than the extortionate price you know they are going to charge. I'm pretty sure that they would have thought of this and spent quite a bit of time locking down like the Mobile Operators did back in the day.

If latency is high then online gaming is not worth it, which to be honest is the only thing I would want internet on a plane for.

Re: I wonder...

Round Trip

a 44,000 mile (71,000km) round-trip

Actually, it's at least twice that for a round-trip.

Wikipedia tells me a geosynchronous orbit is roughly 35,700km above the equator. Satellite data requests must go from computer up to satellite (1x), from satellite to ground relay (2x), over the Internet to the server that responds to the request, then back to the ground relay and up to the satellite (3x), and finally then back down to the computer (4x). Total trip is approximately 142,800km.

I think there may be issues with atmospheric attenuation, there's a lot less air between a plane and a satellite than there is between two planes at any decent range. Plus on something like a trans-Atlantic flight you'd be out of line of sight of anything in vicinity of land for most of the time anyway, obviouly you could relay through multiple aircraft but that would probably require a level of cooperation between airlines that they're unlikely to go for.

I suspect it may be easier tracking a geostationary satellite than another aircraft as well, the latter is a lot less predictable.

Roaming

Re: Roaming

I couldn't pin them down on prices, and as to 50Mb for a whole plane the view was "that's SO much more than we have at the moment it's not an issue". Which I guess means the want to charge so much no-one will be streaming a whole movie.